Charles Augustus Young

Charles Augustus Young 1834-1908, American astronomer, b. Hanover, N.H., grad. Dartmouth, 1853. He discovered the reversing layer of the solar atmosphere and proved the gaseous nature of the sun's corona. He was a pioneer in the study of the spectrum of the sun and experimented in photographing solar prominences in full sunlight. He was professor (1857-66) of astronomy, natural philosophy, and mathematics at Western Reserve College (now Case Western Reserve Univ.), professor of astronomy and natural philosophy at Dartmouth College (1866-77), and professor of astronomy at Princeton (1877-1905). His works include The Sun (1881, rev. ed. 1896), Lessons in Astronomy (1891, rev. ed. 1918), and The Elements of Astronomy (1890, rev. ed. 1919).

Young, Charles (1864–1919), U.S. Army colonel, military attache.The son of slaves, Young was born in Kentucky and educated in Ohio. He became the ninth African American appointed to West Point, and only the third to graduate (1889). Young's military career was consistently marked by his achievement in mixing combat, command, and intelligence assignments with teaching, administrative, and diplomatic duties at home and abroad. He served for nearly three decades (1889–1917), experiencing combat in the Spanish‐American War, the Philippine War, Haiti, Liberia, and Mexico. On the eve of World War I, he was sixth in line for promotion to brigadier general.

Although genuine physical aliments (high blood pressure and kidney inflammation) constituted the official reasons for his removal from active duty, Colonel Young was also the victim of the 1890s and early twentieth‐century white redefinitions of manhood, gender, and race. The African American successes as combatants during the Spanish‐American War helped spark debate within the military on the suitability of using blacks for combat. The cultural attempt by African Americans to define their independence as citizens came into play in the enforced retirement of Colonel Young as the nation prepared for entry into World War I.
[See also African Americans in the Military.]

Bibliography

Gerald W. Patton , War and Race: The Black Officer in the American Military, 1915–1941, 1981.
Robert Ewell Greene , Colonel Charles Young, Soldier and Diplomat, 1985.

Gregory L. Mixon

Young, Charles (1864–1922) U.S. army officer. Born to former slaves in Mayslick, Kentucky, Young became only the third African-American graduate of West Point in 1889. Officers of his race had few opportunities for assignment, and he spent most of his service with the Ninth or Tenth Cavalry Regiments and teaching military science at Wilberforce University. He was the only black commissioned officer in the army during the Spanish-American War (1898). Though he missed action in Cuba because he was training black volunteers in Ohio, he did serve with the Ninth Cavalry helping to quell the Philippine War. After that conflict he served as a military attaché in Haiti and Liberia. In 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel while leading elements of the Tenth Cavalry as part of John J. Pershing's Punitive Expedition into Mexico. When the U.S. entered World War I the prospect that Young might advance to command that regiment brought protests from white officers and U.S. senators, resulting in Young's forced retirement for health reasons. He rode on horseback from Ohio to Washington to protest and demonstrate his vigor, but to no avail. He was retired at the rank of colonel, the highest level achieved by an African-American officer to that date. Young was recalled late in the war to train troops, and then sent to Liberia again as military attaché in 1919. While visiting Lagos, Nigeria he fell ill and died. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.